cotswoldiver
Well-known member
Sometimes being patience and seeking a second opinion helps.
Its well documented the issues I've had with what is basically a well spec'd bus (for that read money pit/divorce generating piece of machinery) designed and built to be used anywhere in the UK or Europe - but driving back up from Cornwall this weekend the world is being seen as a much happier place and selling the bus is now off the agenda.
No apologies for the length of this post as I think there are some basic points that may help others, especially newbies to the forum.
Two things got sorted. Following the fuel leak issue in Scotland I took the bus back to Rocket Ron in Trowbridge where it first started its journey from a bus being off the road for 5 years to a vehicle designed for smiles and fun - and with his and the non VW garage next door to his premises help, the engine came out with the aim of looking for the fuel leak in the tank area. Everything still looked OK and no obvious leakage, but there was a slightly loose hose on one of the carbs and a locking nut adrift. Anyway, long story short even though the fuel hose was OK I'd purchased a quantity of the bio fuel type from AFS and they swapped that over, changed the clips and generally tidied and reduced the lengths of some of the hoses. They also spotted that the servo hose wasn't fitted properly and sorted that out, so once sorted lo and behold the popping that had been an annoying intermittent issue almost since the 1776 engine had been fitted disappeared. OK, a painful bill for taking the engine out and generally sorting all sorts of bits and bobs, but Lesson one - sometimes it takes a general garage with good mechanics not a VW specialist to spot the obvious!
But the best bit was following up on Alex (VW Heritage) post on the forum recommending Graham at Rawspeed in Plymouth and although the bus actually ran very well on Thursday evening from Berkshire to Devon we spent Friday with Graham at his workshop and with his wonderful old school approach (backed up with a great love of VW's and a bank of knowledge & experience) plus up to date rolling road and tuning equipment he set about checking and tinkering until he was happy. This was following the initial test drive where Graham summed the ride up as good, but he had driven better - Within a relatively short time he was happy, but then instead of letting me drive away it was obvious from the look on his face that he wasn't 100% happy, in particular with the left side carb so he looked again.
My wonderful engine set up was fighting him and he was sort of enjoying the challenge. Turned out there was a problem/fault with fuel inlet jet , basically because instead of the usual two turns of adjustment there was barely a 1/4 available. Looks like at some point in the past it may have been over tightened and the end result was that it was not sat properly and it was being over fueled as fuel was getting in via the sides not the jet itself. In fairness, previous people had done their best at setting it up, but turns out they had probably set it up to run as good as they could get it, and they had provided a solution but had not solved the real problem. That's why it was running on the rich side
So the inlet issue was fixed as best as possible, then another bit of juggling/experimenting getting the rest of the jets in both carbs sorted having already got the balance between the two better. Fuel flow checked to make sure that was causing an over fueling issue and just a little thing - the arms were slightly angled on both sides to get the smoothest response from the throttle and finally, the 123 ignition was then tuned to match the readings from Graham's equipment, particularly looking at getting the start up and low speed running. In short Graham tried everything to getting the bus running as smooth as possible and even a possible gain of 2-4 miles per gallon.
End result after the final road test, a definite improvement on how it came into the workshop in the morning and the run yesterday afternoon from Cornwall to Berkshire was a joy.
So other lessons -
Lesson Two - Depending on what your engine is pushing out BHP wise, stop and think do you really need a pair of 40's. At the end my 1776 was pushing out 86bhp on the chart but taking into account losing around 15bhp by the time it actually transfers this to the road I was questioning if it was really worth the initial expense of buying twin carbs and all the other bits and bobs to go with it. Having listened to Graham, if I was building again I would go single carbs and actually may even go with just one carb as VW originally intended. There is such a small amount to be gained power wise, that if you engine is built and set up properly it will function just as well and with less tuning headaches in the future - and more reliability. In fact, even with everything set up and running well I am still seriously thinking of selling my twin 40 webers complete with CB linkage at some point over winter and getting Graham to set up two single carbs.
Lesson Three - Sense check what you are spending on getting your bus on the road. Don't get carried away with the array of aftermarket stuff out there. Sometimes the little things made by the likes of Butty's bits are well worth it and great value, but its been said before in other posts, VW didn't do a bad job with the first set up - its fine to spend money on Vintage Speed Exhausts - personally having fitted both I think my turbo thomas is much better, but maybe I didn't even have to spend that much in the first place would a standard exhaust have been just as fine when sensibly looking at cost versus gain. Same with fancy ignition systems, I love my 123 and have used it on two different buses , but there are cheaper electronic options that do the job or just keep points!
Lesson Four - Learn more about what you can do yourself with your bus, but if your joy comes from driving not fixing your bus don't worry about it - its your bus do with it whatever you want, but if you are having to trust its upkeep to 'third parties' do your research, always use people recommended and sometimes even if you have used good people and something just doesn't seem quite right to you, get a second opinion especially if you are trying to really solve a problem properly not just fix an issue
Lesson Five - This is still the best forum out there. Yep from time to time there is a bit of general lightness and an occasional lapse away from purpose that makes you think it could be going down hill and tumbling in the direction of other forums but its is still running well because of the original wish that this is a forum for 'fans of lowlight vans' and the mods take a genuine interest in its well being. The main contributors on here are not doing it purely for commercial gain, there is a genuine wish to help and assist. This is a great knowledge base - use it and contribute
Lesson Six - Think long and hard before you quit, the illusive answer may be around the corner or a long drive away - but the best people are worth travelling to. Our buses are old, but well loved and they can be fixed, just learn more yourself or find good people to help you
Yours, a happier smiling westy driver
Its well documented the issues I've had with what is basically a well spec'd bus (for that read money pit/divorce generating piece of machinery) designed and built to be used anywhere in the UK or Europe - but driving back up from Cornwall this weekend the world is being seen as a much happier place and selling the bus is now off the agenda.
No apologies for the length of this post as I think there are some basic points that may help others, especially newbies to the forum.
Two things got sorted. Following the fuel leak issue in Scotland I took the bus back to Rocket Ron in Trowbridge where it first started its journey from a bus being off the road for 5 years to a vehicle designed for smiles and fun - and with his and the non VW garage next door to his premises help, the engine came out with the aim of looking for the fuel leak in the tank area. Everything still looked OK and no obvious leakage, but there was a slightly loose hose on one of the carbs and a locking nut adrift. Anyway, long story short even though the fuel hose was OK I'd purchased a quantity of the bio fuel type from AFS and they swapped that over, changed the clips and generally tidied and reduced the lengths of some of the hoses. They also spotted that the servo hose wasn't fitted properly and sorted that out, so once sorted lo and behold the popping that had been an annoying intermittent issue almost since the 1776 engine had been fitted disappeared. OK, a painful bill for taking the engine out and generally sorting all sorts of bits and bobs, but Lesson one - sometimes it takes a general garage with good mechanics not a VW specialist to spot the obvious!
But the best bit was following up on Alex (VW Heritage) post on the forum recommending Graham at Rawspeed in Plymouth and although the bus actually ran very well on Thursday evening from Berkshire to Devon we spent Friday with Graham at his workshop and with his wonderful old school approach (backed up with a great love of VW's and a bank of knowledge & experience) plus up to date rolling road and tuning equipment he set about checking and tinkering until he was happy. This was following the initial test drive where Graham summed the ride up as good, but he had driven better - Within a relatively short time he was happy, but then instead of letting me drive away it was obvious from the look on his face that he wasn't 100% happy, in particular with the left side carb so he looked again.
My wonderful engine set up was fighting him and he was sort of enjoying the challenge. Turned out there was a problem/fault with fuel inlet jet , basically because instead of the usual two turns of adjustment there was barely a 1/4 available. Looks like at some point in the past it may have been over tightened and the end result was that it was not sat properly and it was being over fueled as fuel was getting in via the sides not the jet itself. In fairness, previous people had done their best at setting it up, but turns out they had probably set it up to run as good as they could get it, and they had provided a solution but had not solved the real problem. That's why it was running on the rich side
So the inlet issue was fixed as best as possible, then another bit of juggling/experimenting getting the rest of the jets in both carbs sorted having already got the balance between the two better. Fuel flow checked to make sure that was causing an over fueling issue and just a little thing - the arms were slightly angled on both sides to get the smoothest response from the throttle and finally, the 123 ignition was then tuned to match the readings from Graham's equipment, particularly looking at getting the start up and low speed running. In short Graham tried everything to getting the bus running as smooth as possible and even a possible gain of 2-4 miles per gallon.
End result after the final road test, a definite improvement on how it came into the workshop in the morning and the run yesterday afternoon from Cornwall to Berkshire was a joy.
So other lessons -
Lesson Two - Depending on what your engine is pushing out BHP wise, stop and think do you really need a pair of 40's. At the end my 1776 was pushing out 86bhp on the chart but taking into account losing around 15bhp by the time it actually transfers this to the road I was questioning if it was really worth the initial expense of buying twin carbs and all the other bits and bobs to go with it. Having listened to Graham, if I was building again I would go single carbs and actually may even go with just one carb as VW originally intended. There is such a small amount to be gained power wise, that if you engine is built and set up properly it will function just as well and with less tuning headaches in the future - and more reliability. In fact, even with everything set up and running well I am still seriously thinking of selling my twin 40 webers complete with CB linkage at some point over winter and getting Graham to set up two single carbs.
Lesson Three - Sense check what you are spending on getting your bus on the road. Don't get carried away with the array of aftermarket stuff out there. Sometimes the little things made by the likes of Butty's bits are well worth it and great value, but its been said before in other posts, VW didn't do a bad job with the first set up - its fine to spend money on Vintage Speed Exhausts - personally having fitted both I think my turbo thomas is much better, but maybe I didn't even have to spend that much in the first place would a standard exhaust have been just as fine when sensibly looking at cost versus gain. Same with fancy ignition systems, I love my 123 and have used it on two different buses , but there are cheaper electronic options that do the job or just keep points!
Lesson Four - Learn more about what you can do yourself with your bus, but if your joy comes from driving not fixing your bus don't worry about it - its your bus do with it whatever you want, but if you are having to trust its upkeep to 'third parties' do your research, always use people recommended and sometimes even if you have used good people and something just doesn't seem quite right to you, get a second opinion especially if you are trying to really solve a problem properly not just fix an issue
Lesson Five - This is still the best forum out there. Yep from time to time there is a bit of general lightness and an occasional lapse away from purpose that makes you think it could be going down hill and tumbling in the direction of other forums but its is still running well because of the original wish that this is a forum for 'fans of lowlight vans' and the mods take a genuine interest in its well being. The main contributors on here are not doing it purely for commercial gain, there is a genuine wish to help and assist. This is a great knowledge base - use it and contribute
Lesson Six - Think long and hard before you quit, the illusive answer may be around the corner or a long drive away - but the best people are worth travelling to. Our buses are old, but well loved and they can be fixed, just learn more yourself or find good people to help you
Yours, a happier smiling westy driver
